explanations of obedience

• 3 variables affecting obedience

  situational, social-psychological, dispositional
• situational variables


  proximity, uniform, location
• proximity


  proximity of victim: when the teacher is in the same room as the student obedience dropped to 40%

  
  

  touch proximity: when the teacher is helping to keep the students arms in the correct position to recieve a shock obedience dropped to 30% as they felt more responsible

  
  

  proximity of the experimenter: when the experimenter left the room and gave orders through a phone obedience dropped to 21%

  
  

  this suggests the further the teacher is from the student the more they would obey
• location


  when the experiment was carried out in an office block instead of the original prestigious yale university obedience dropped to 48%

  
  

  this suggests that location factors associated with status reinforce the legitimacy of the authority which can increase obedience
• uniform


  when the experimenter was dressed in a lab coat vs when the experimenter was dressed in ordinary casual clothes obedience dropped to 20%

  
  

  to further this, bickman did a field experiment

  - in the street people were asked by either a civillian, milkman or policeman to pick rubbish / give a dime to a stranger / move from a bus stop

  - 92% obeyed to give money by someone in a guard uniform

  -49% obeyed to give money by someone in civillian clothes
• social psychological explanations for obedience


  legitimate authority, agentic state
• legitimate authority


  suggests people are more likely to obey people who we perceive to have authority over us, the person giving the order has the right or expertise to give the order. This can be based on uniform

  
  

  legitimate commands arise from institutions (belonging to one)

  -bickmans experiment supports this
• agentic state


  a mental state where we feel no personal responsibility for our actions because we believe ourselves to be acting for an authority figure eg an agent for them, this frees us from our consciences and allows us to follow the commands of even a destructive authority figure

  
  

  in an autonomous state individuals see themselves as having power

  in an angentic state individuals act as agents for others

  -milgrams experiment supports this
• binding factors


  helps keep people in the agentic state

  
  

  in social situations there is social etiquette eg don't interupt its rude

  in order for the experiment to be stopped the participant would have needed to go against the previous consent given to the experimenter which feels like a small form of betrayal and lying

  
  

  whilst this emotion is small compared to the pretend damage done to the student it is enough to bind the participants into obedience and keep them in the agentic state
• dispositional explanations for obedience


  authoritarian personality
• what is the authoritarian personality


  -hold rigid beliefs in conventional values

  - general hostility towards other groups

  - submissive to authority figures
• how was the authoritarian personality measured


  f-scale

  -devised by adorno et al

  indicated a slight, moderate or strong authoritarian personality

  
  

  f scale pros:

  -milgram and elms compared the f-scale scores of 20 obedient/20 disobedient participants involved in his experiment and found participants who were highly obedient had a higher f-scale score
• cons of f-scale


  not a valid measure of personality

  -it is politically biased: measures the tendency towards an extreme right wing ideology which is a politically biased interpretation of the authoritarian personality: there are also left-wing versions of authoritarianism eg maoism

  
  

  -acquiesce bias: all questions are worded in the same directions, so could just be measuring humans tendency to agree with statements

  
  

  -social desirability bias: participants responses are distorted as they want to appear in a positive light- problem for the validity of the test because traits measured may not be genuine
• alternative explanations for obedience


  social identity theory
• what is the social identity theory


  belonging to a group gives us a sense of social identity and belonging

  eg, the majority of the german people identified with the anti-semitic nazi state and scape-goated the jews, people thought they were doing good as in the experiment (this is a more realistic theory)
• extra explanations of obedience


  social support

  locus of control
• what is social support


  f there are others who obey the authority figure, they are likely to act as role models which allows others to obey without questioning legitimacy
• eval of social support


  in milgrams experiment, when participants could instruct an assistant (a confederate) to press the switches, 92% went to 450V - reduces the personal responsibility and obedience increases whereas

  -when 2 other participants (confeds) were also teachers, who refused to obey: obedience reduced to 10% as there was no social support
• what is locus of control


  a persons perception of personal control over their own behaviour
• what are the types of locus of control


  internal, external
• what is internal locus of control


  people believe that what happens to them is controlled by them

  
  

  - more likely to show independence in thoughts and behaviour

  - rely less on the opinions of others
• what is external locus of control


  people believe that what happens to them is out of their control eg fate or other people

  
  

  - they tend to be more passive and fatalistic

  - take less personal responsibility
• which locus of control is more likely to resist obedience


  internal
• why might internal locus of control be more resistant to obedience


  - high internals are active seekers of info and are less likely to rely on opinions of others which makes them less vunerable

  - high internals tend to be more achievement orientated and therefore become leaders rather than followers

  - high internals are better able at resisting coercion eg in hutchins and esteys experiment
• what is hutchins and esteys experiment


  simulated prisoner of war camp

  - internals were better able to resist orders/ interrogation, the greater the pressure = the greater the difference between internals and externals performance
• negative eval of locus of control


  locus of control is related to NSI but not ISI

  - spector measured locus of control and predisposition to NSI and ISI in 157 students

  - found correlation between externals conforming more to NSI than internals

  - no relationship for ISI

  - not an explanation for all social pressures eg informative pressure
• positive eval of locus of control


  good application, people are more external than they used to be

  - twenge meta analysis found young people (americans esp) are more believing in fate etc

  - explained in terms of alienation of young people

  
  

  research support

  - avtgis meta analysis
• what was avtgis' meta analysis


  -analysis of the rel between locus of control and different forms of SI including conformity

  - showed significant positive correlation for the rel between internality/externality and scores on measures of persuasion, SI and conformity

  
  

  - higher external = more easily persuaded + influenced